


Rhodey Booty and College Anecdotes

by rebelmeg



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidents, Avengers Family, Birthday Party, Fluff and Humor, Gen, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, MIT Era, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, One Big Happy Family, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Story within a Story, We disrespect canon in this house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebelmeg/pseuds/rebelmeg
Summary: A sleep deprived Rhodey is all kinds of fun, and Tony celebrates a birthday with his family.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 38
Kudos: 87
Collections: IronHusbands, Rhodey_apprecationweek2020/05, Tony Stark Bingo 2020, Ultimate Favorites





	Rhodey Booty and College Anecdotes

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for three reasons, 1) Rhodey Week Day 5, for the prompt “Stop that.” 2) for Tony's birthday! 3) for my TSB square R4 - no modesty
> 
> Also, the whole "fall all over the bathroom, end up in the shower, and lose the underwear" thing? My hubby did exactly that the other night, and I still start cracking up every time I think about it. It was too good to pass up, so I had to immortalize his antics in fic form!
> 
> Many thanks to [SierraNovembr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SierraNovembr) who was my wonderful beta!
> 
> Title: Rhodey Booty and College Anecdotes  
> Collaborator: rebelmeg  
> Card Number: 3055  
> Square Filled: R4 - no modesty  
> Ship: Tony & Rhodey, minor Pepperony  
> Rating: Gen  
> Major Tags: fluff and humor, college anecdotes, Avengers family  
> Summary: A sleep deprived Rhodey is all kinds of fun, and Tony celebrates a birthday with his family.  
> Word Count: 2061

Rhodey had been awake for two days. And he knew, he _knew_ it was stupid, it wasn’t helping, he wasn’t going to remember what he had studied when he was this tired. But he couldn’t sleep with all the stress of midterms looming, so he might as well be studying even if it was useless.

Getting to his feet was a chore, and he ran into the doorway as he stumbled into the hall and down to the bathroom. He fumbled for the light switch, missing several times before just giving up and shuffling over to the toilet, sliding his boxers down his hips.

Or, he tried to shuffle to the toilet.

His ankle knocked into something on the floor, and his arms flung out as he tried to catch himself, blindly flailing in the dark with the lack of coordination associated with sleep deprivation. One arm smacked into the basket of extra toilet paper on the back of the toilet, sweeping it to the floor, and his thigh smacking into the toilet sent him spinning into the shower curtain.

A split second later, once all the clattering and thumping and banging stopped, Rhodey blinked several times and got his bearings in the dark. He was balanced precariously on the edge of the tub, with the shower curtain trapped under his butt, his arms out and trying to brace himself, and one foot up on the lid of the toilet. What?

And then he registered the sound of the toilet running. Somehow… in all that mess, he’d managed to flush the toilet? What?

A shadow appeared in the door a moment before the light came on and just about blinded him. “What the _hell_ was that?!”

Squinting, Rhodey peered up at his roommate. “I tripped.”

Tony took a look at the chaos, from the upturned footstool and the scattered rolls of toilet paper on the floor, to the twisted and trapped shower curtain and Rhodey’s sprawled form. For a second it looked like the kid might burst into tears. His mouth was trembling, and he was biting his lip. Rhodey was confused, he had no idea what was wrong, when suddenly Tony giggled.

Oh. He wasn’t trying not to cry. He was trying not to laugh.

And failing.

In fits and starts, giggles kept slipping out, until Tony was out and out laughing so hard his face was turning red. His eyes were watering too, and he had to brace himself on the counter with one hand while he righted the stool that he kept next to the door so he could reach the top shelf by the sink. Rhodey figured that he’d probably tripped over that.

Tony spluttered, “What did—how did you even—did you flush the toilet with your foot?!”

Rhodey sighed a little, tried to get up, and only succeeded in popping one of the shower curtain loops free of its hook. “Apparently.”

Tony was laughing like a loon as he handed Rhodey a towel off the rack, eyes still streaming. “You come in here with underwear? Or just wandering around in the middle of the night with your trouser snake loose?”

Rhodey glanced down, realizing he was half naked, then around on the floor to look for his boxers, his bewilderment mounting with each passing second as he draped the towel over his lap. “Yes?”

Tony was almost no help, absolutely weak from laughter when he held out his hand and tried to haul Rhodey up. Rhodey did most of the work, then shooed Tony out of the bathroom so he could finish what he’d come in there for, still looking for his boxers that had apparently slipped into some kind of pocket dimension and vanished. He heard his roommate lean against the wall opposite the bathroom door, and then the sound of him sliding down and thumping to the floor, his laughter getting started all over again.

Right. Rhodey was gonna go to bed. He’d take care of this mess in the morning.

* * *

Rhodey awoke the next morning to the sound of raucous guffawing coming through the walls, peals of laughter the likes of which were indecent at the crack of dawn. Shoving his head under his pillow, he resolved to wait it out, but then a moment later his bedroom door was being flung open.

“I found—” Tony wheezed, barely able to get words out between bursts of cackling. “I found—they were—just hanging there—soap dish—” And then, as Rhodey peeked out at him from under his pillow, his dripping wet, towel-wrapped roommate fell to the floor, sitting there red in the face and gasping for air as he laughed so hard he couldn’t breathe. And in his hands, he was clutching Rhodey’s boxers from the night before.

“Did you say they were hanging off the soap dish?” Rhodey mumbled, trying to figure out in his current sleep-addled state how exactly he’d managed to launch his boxers into the shower high enough that they’d landed on the soap dish that was eye-level when you were standing in there.

Tony wasn’t even making noise anymore, just shaking with silent laughter, tears trickling down his red face as he flapped his hands and Rhodey's boxers uselessly. He kept trying to calm down, taking deep breaths, but then every time he looked at Rhodey or the boxers, he lost it again.

A few minutes later, Rhodey had shuffled out of bed to sit on the floor and Tony was lying flat on his back, just trying to curb the giggles that kept trying to escape. Rhodey had tossed the trouble-making boxers in the direction of the laundry hamper, so at least those weren’t triggering any more laughing fits, but Tony had to keep his eyes closed because every time he looked at his roommate, he started to laugh again.

“Just wondering,” Rhodey said casually, finally starting to wake up enough to notice that he kind of ached all over (probably from flailing all over the bathroom last night), “Am I ever gonna live this down?”

Tony gave him one watery-eyed look before he was gone again, rolling over on his side and clutching what had to be aching sides while he laughed like an idiot.

“Stop that.”

“Can’t stop,” He wheezed between breaths, “send help.”

“Nope. You’ll just tell the paramedics about last night.”

“ _Boxers_.” Tony managed, and then he was absolutely useless for the next half hour as he tried to calm down.

* * *

“And that,” Tony finished his anecdote with a grin, “was when I knew that this dumbass was gonna be my best friend forever.”

Rhodey was rolling his eyes, but like the rest of the Avengers gathered around in the far too small living room of the Stark lake house, he’d been laughing his way through the story as Tony told it. Of course, he’d had to take a few breaks to catch his breath, but that was alright. Tony’s laughter was contagious, especially the way his whole face scrunched up, laugh lines even more prominent, and sometimes he even ended up kicking his legs with delight. Pepper had been forced to take Morgan up to bed two anecdotes ago, with some quiet music on to dull the sounds of late night, post-birthday party laughter downstairs. (It wasn’t every day Iron Man turned 55, after all.)

Natasha was wiping tears off her cheeks as she reached over to poke Clint, who was squished between her, Thor, and Bruce on the couch. “That sounds like something this one would do.”

“Hey!” Clint protested, glaring for half a second before shrugging. “Yeah, alright, fair.”

“I still don’t understand.” Steve admitted, sitting on one of the chairs borrowed from the kitchen, his face pink from laughing and a shiny blue party hat still on his head. “How did you manage to fling your boxers up onto the soap dish?”

Tony, sitting in an armchair with Pepper on one armrest and Rhodey on the other, had dissolved into giggles again, falling sideways and into Rhodey’s side. “He still has no idea!”

“I don’t,” Rhodey confessed as he shook his head, wrapping an arm around Tony’s head in a loose wrestling hold and trying to stick the end of a party horn up his nose. “Best I can figure, I kicked it up and over the curtain rod while I was falling into the shower curtain.”

The whole lot of them fell into laughter again, the sheer mental image of a teenage Rhodey tripping and launching his boxers into the shower too much to bear with a straight face.

Tony sat up abruptly, tears of laughter in his eyes, his face red. “Oh, and then there was that time during spring break when you discovered how much tequila was not your friend!”

“NO!” Rhodey shouted, making a grab for his best friend, but Tony slid down out of his seat and thumped to the floor, landing halfway on Thor’s feet and Sam’s lap.

“Save me, Point Break! This is a story worth telling!”

“Yes, let’s hear more stories of your younger days, Rhodes!” Thor held Rhodey off with one big hand on his chest while Tony scrambled over the top of Bucky and Sam (both sprawled on the floor) to sit by Bruce’s feet. He arranged himself cross-legged and flung away a stray piece of ripped birthday wrapping paper as he began his story.

“So, have you ever heard the song ‘Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off’?”

Bruce was looking down at the top of Tony's graying head, wide-eyed and slightly apprehensive. “Um… no?”

“I have!” Sam actually raised his hand, grinning.

Tony patted Bruce’s knee and tipped his head back to look up at him, “That’s okay, Brucie-bear, the title tells you everything you need to know.”

Steve had pulled his phone out, probably to google the song, and asked, “How is this relevant?”

An utterly devilish grin spread across Tony’s face as Rhodey moaned pathetically and slid sideways into Tony’s seat, burying his face in a laughing Pepper’s side. 

“Because that’s Rhodey. Rhodey and tequila turn into table dancing and nudity with _alarming_ speed and accuracy, and I’m fairly certain that I could pick his ass out of a lineup solely because of all the times I had to go chasing after him at MIT when he got tequila-drunk at a party and started stripping.”

Everyone burst out laughing, Sam was pointing at Rhodey and shouting “YOU’RE A STREAKER!” and Bruce had his head in his hands with his glasses pushed up his forehead, though his shoulders were shaking with laughter.

“Oh, come on!” Rhodey protested, “It’s been awhile since that happened.”

Pepper piped up then, beating Tony to it as she raised one eyebrow. “Fiftieth birthday party.”

“Yeah, what she said!” Tony folded his arms and looked smug as he leaned back against Bruce’s legs and propped his feet up on Bucky’s back.

Rhodey opened his mouth, shut it again, and had to think for a second. “Yours or mine?”

“EXACTLY!”

Rhodey just let himself fall back into the chair cushions, shaking his head and covering his face with his hands as Pepper patted his shoulder consolingly. He was being forced to acknowledge that he’d lost all sense of control or dignity. It was out now, and he was never gonna hear the end of it.

“Or that time he pulled a _really naughty_ prank on our dorm supervisor, and I had to say it was me so he didn’t get kicked out,” Tony continued as he yanked his socked feet out of range of the spoonful of red cake frosting that Bucky was threatening to smear on him, and he was still grinning like the devil when Rhodey peeked at him. Tony just shot him a wink, all kinds of fond and sassy, and Rhodey figured that, yeah, with a best friend like Tony, he had this coming.

Oh well. He contented himself with thoughts of winter break 1990, and then the true story of where the famous Stark goatee came from. Tony certainly wasn’t the only one with stories to tell, and once his best friend’s birthday was over at midnight, Rhodey was absolutely going to get him back for it. 

Just wait until they all found out that, for a few weeks anyway, Tony had sported a belly button ring in 1999.


End file.
